


Worlds Collide

by alyyks



Category: Awaken the Stars Series - Jer Keene, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, GFY, Gen, Language Barrier, Minor Injuries, Psychic Abilities, The Force Did It, background Rex Tjin/Euan Ambrus, starts right as Ashlesha ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-01 08:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14516484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: Rex meets Rex. And a few more elements that should belong only to movies with that.(The Force works in mysterious ways)





	1. Chapter 1

Rex Tjin doesn’t know where he is. It’s a problem for more than one reason.

He went back to sleep between his siblings Ella and Eric, Kai’s Wonderjuice and Calm The Fuck Down mix hitting hard enough to smooth out the edges of the freak out he was still too close to. Before that, he shared Euan’s conscious actions, separated by about a hundred kilometers. Somewhere in between, he apparently tried to breathe in the ocean and Xāwuṭh grabbed his ass out of it before he could finish. Rex has no memory of that in-between.

Full PTSD blackouts: nobody likes them. Rex is really, really hoping he didn’t have a second one right on top of the first and went off wandering somewhere, snapping back to himself standing here, wherever _here_ is. He hasn’t had episodes that bad since college.

That he just went off to wander on his own… that hypothesis is full of holes. His entire family, give or take a few people who went to sleep on the boat they have been living in for the past week, is in the house he went to sleep in and the house right next to it on the beach in Mapun. His father, at the very least, is guaranteed to still be awake after Rex’s blackout. If not Django, there are eight other people around who would and could have stopped him if they heard or saw him get up, starting with the twins sleeping on either side of him and in the same bed.

Then there’s the fact that Mapun is nicely warm at this time of the year, so warm he was tempted to go to sleep naked the first time he went to bed, before not-quite-dreaming and diving face first into the ocean. He only has his shorts and shirt on and they still feel slightly damp from the water. They’re also cold against his skin and getting colder by the second. He shivers, hands tucked into his armpits. Unless he wandered off into an exceptionally large walk-in freezer, he’s not on the island anymore.

Still leaves the questions of _where the fuck he is_ and _how the hell he got here_ on the table.

There’s another possibility: he didn’t go anywhere and he’s trapped in his own head…or in someone else’s head and thoughts. Given the shit they’ve seen so far, he can’t dismiss the possibility of a convoluted department’s trap. Given the experience of wandering into his fiancé’s head he had just a couple hours ago—he’ll take a couple hours ago as a measure, because his internal clock is fucked and even getting shot hadn’t fucked it that bad—this doesn’t feel like someone else’s head. It’s too fucking cold, for one. He’s also in his own body, not someone else’s, and he’s in control of his actions.

A light panel buzzes to his right, clicks back to life.

If Rex didn’t know any better—and he fucking does, thanks—he’d say this looks a lot like the generic sci-fi corridor background of a low budget series, save the fact it’s very much not painted cardboard and foam. The floors, ceilings and walls are a grey metal he can’t identify right away, the glowy lights are very white and embedded in the walls, and none of the doors he has seen so far open; their control boxes or whatever they are don’t react to him and are not anything he can pop the cover off of with just his fingernails.

As best as he can tell, he’s been walking that corridor for ten minutes. He has seen no sign of life or occupancy, nothing written anywhere. The buzzing light panel is the first sign of anything changing.

Rex keeps going. It really is fucking cold, and his feet keep reminding him of that. If they stop hurting, or he stops shivering, he’ll know he’s in deep shit. Hypothermia is not a good way to go.

There’s a faint noise further away. Rex stops. It almost sounds like Eric’s artificial leg hitting the floor, times ten or a hundred; the metal echoes too much to get a precise idea. It doesn’t feel right. It’s also the first thing he hears that’s not himself.

Rex really, really wants to know what’s going on, please and fucking thank you, so he runs toward the noise. It gets louder.

There’s finally a change that’s not just a light clicking on in the corridor: it opens on a sort of balcony that extends on either side of the doorway, and which overlooks a large open space that looks like a cross between a hangar and a factory floor. There’s more noise down there, the pew-pew laser sounds he and his siblings tried to imitate when they were kids and playing at Star Wars.

He saw the prequels and some of the animated TV series for the first time a few months ago: it’s fairly fresh in his mind. So he can say, with certainty and complete bewilderment, that he’s looking at battle droids, Republic troops, and—what the absolute fuck—a least one Jedi, based on the shaft of brilliant light moving further down the hangar-warehouse-space.

Rex’s life has never been anywhere near normal but this? This is taking the fucking cake and the cherry on top.

He doesn’t have the time to figure out if this is exactly what he’s afraid of, that he’s stuck into someone’s else head that’s playing with a pop culture scenario in a fucked up department’s trap, because his instincts rear up in a rush right before a metallic voice cries out from his left: “Intruder! Stop him!”

It’s not English and not Mandarin and not Maori nor any other language he dabbles in and he can understand it. He’s also getting fucking shot at by droids. 

Rex ducks, dodges, runs down the balcony toward the ramps going down into the hangar space where the droids on his tail are not, and thus straight in the direction of the Republic troops. A shot from behind grazes his arm, leaves searing heat in its wake, makes him stumble. The first weapon on the ground he finds—appropriately, from a downed droid—he picks up, noting how strangely light it is, and he shoots back with no recoil he can feel. Unlike the droids, all his shots hit their targets. The best way to stop them seems to be shooting below the rib cage-like body, or into the thin neck to sever the head.

The next droid he points his blaster at gets shot by someone else. So does the next one, and the one after that. The two troopers in white armor on either side of him move as one man. The third trooper walks in front of him, pushing Rex further back into the Republic forces. During that maneuver, the troopers have been completely silent but moving like they are making sounds. Anything that’s said or shouted probably goes straight into their helmets.

At this moment, Rex’s body reminds him that he’s been shot or something closer to burned, and it’s still too fucking cold to wear just shorts and a shirt. He also slammed his feet into something sharp at some point, leaving bright red drops on the metal floor and not quite feeling it.

The Republic troops are good, almost as good as having his family at his back. He’s still shooting into the incoming waves of droids.

“You!” he hears, and again, it’s not English and not Mandarin and not Maori and he understands it. “Stop shooting and let me look at you!” He doesn’t need to see the red logos painted on his guy’s arms to recognize a medic. Rex is far enough from the front line now, he lets the medic drag him further away. He keeps the blaster.

There’s a double take from the medic and some of the troopers, but that doesn’t stop them from moving on in any way. 

Around one of the factory-like pieces of equipment large enough to be used as cover, there’s a makeshift infirmary set up, mostly just guys lying down or sitting up with a couple medics around them, and a squad’s worth of troopers on perimeter. The troopers who have their helmets off all look alike, save for haircuts and tattoos. Republic _clone_ troopers, Rex reminds himself. It’s one thing to see green-screen copies of Temuera Morrison or identical cartoon animated people on a screen, and another to see breathing, living clones with his own two eyes.

They look like they should be cousins of his. 

The medic makes him sit on what looks to be a folded survival blanket, makes a hand gesture at one of the troopers on perimeter at the same time. The trooper comes closer, clearly acting as guard, and make Rex gives him the blaster. Rex doesn’t have time to get twitchy about it, though he can appreciate their professionalism, because the medic is on him. The survival blanket thrown over Rex’s shoulders helps with the cold a bit.

“I thought you were a brother who’d lost his mind in the line, but you’re a civilian. Where the hells did you come from? There were only droids until now.”

Rex has no idea what to say to that. “I don’t know.” So the truth it is.

The medic tilts his head at him. “Do you speak Basic?” The not English and not Mandarin and not Maori again, and Rex understand it, but the reverse doesn’t seem to apply.

Rex tries Mandarin. The medic shakes his head. Then Maori. The medic answers back in what could be a somewhat related language but it’s so broken up, or so different from the language he knows, that Rex understands nothing of it.

The guard then tries something that sounds like he’s gargling a pot of melted cheese, which goes nowhere fast.

The medic sighs while he looks at Rex’s feet and spreads smelly translucent goop on the deep cuts Rex still doesn’t feel. “Do you understand Basic?”

Rex nods. Seems he’ll be stuck to pantomime for now. He shivers, violently, and puts his hands back into his armpits, dragging the blanket closer to his body.

The medic curses. “Dammit, how long have you been running around like this? This is a call for hypothermia. Cross!” he shouts at one of the other medics. “Do we have a spare body glove?”

“We got more than that,” Cross replies from the side of the trooper he’s working on. Rex can’t see what’s wrong with the guy, as he’s laying down, but he’s moving his arms. Not a dead one.

There’s a line of unmoving bodies a few meters down from their position.

The first medic shoves folded cloth into his arms. Rex startles. Had he zoned out? “Hope you don’t mind the color—it’ll keep you warm until someone can talk to you and we return to the ships.”

The body glove goes from toe to neck like a second skin, is thicker than it appears at first, and is fantastically warm. Rex is never giving it back. The medic—the guy has to have a name, it’d be better than calling him _the medic_ —lets him pull it on, but makes him stop before Rex covers the burn on his arm. Rex had almost forgotten about it. The wound is quickly washed and then more of the smelly goop is rubbed on it. Rex finishes dressing up, pulls his still-damp shirt back on for extra layers. It sets him apart from the few other guys in body gloves, a plus; he suspects he looks a lot like the clones, dressed like them.

The medic-whose-name-he-doesn’t-know pats him on the shoulder. “Stay here. I’ll get the General to attempt translation once we finish with the hangar.” And then he goes back to the rest of the troopers, before Rex can try to ask for his name. Rex’s not even sure _he_ and _his_ are the words he should be using, given the context of the situation.

Rex glances up at the trooper standing guard, and if the guard glances back, it’s concealed by his helmet. The rifle rising up at the same time as Rex makes it clear that Rex is expected to sit and do nothing. By the look of things, he wouldn’t be able to do much to help out the medics, doesn’t even recognize their equipment. There’s nothing to do but wait. Rex is very familiar with that kind of waiting.

Rex turns his back on the makeshift infirmary, looking out toward the hangar and the fighting. The troopers who have color on their white armors mostly have blue markings. The body glove he’s wearing has the gear-like logo of the Republic on it, hidden under his shirt.

Rex Tjin doesn’t know where the fuck he is, because _somewhere and somewhen in_ _Star Wars_ is not a fucking answer. He really, really wants to go back to his family.

There’s nothing to do but wait.

 

—

 

The Republic troops take the hangar. From what Rex hears, it’s part of a larger space station that had been controlling part of an important trade route. He doesn’t see much of the station itself, not that there is much to see. Metal, more metal, moving metal to break the monotony. Like the corridor he had shown up in, everywhere he can see when he’s shown to follow the squads evacuating the makeshift infirmary looks like it has been emptied.

It’s always interesting to hear what people say when they think you don’t understand their language. The troopers he moves with seem to have made a game of criticizing the taste, or lack thereof, of the interior decorators. They’re pretty funny guys. Aside from the references he doesn’t get—an entire galaxy of in-jokes and pop culture, and that’s as far as he allows himself to think about that—Rex could be walking with any group of soldiers from back home.

The first medic comes back, and stops Rex and his guard. “The General will see you now,” he says, and he leads them ahead of the evacuating squads, to another hangar space.

Another hangar that opens _on_ space and fuck, fuck, fuck, Rex is not dreaming. He stares at space, so close he could touch it. He doesn’t recognize any constellations, because _there are too many stars_.

“Kix!” He hears the shout through his shock, not quite enough to jolt him back from staring at fucking space there just beyond something that looks like an open door and crackles blue at the edges, “Is that our man?”

“Yes sir,” the medic —Kix, good to have a name now—replies, takes his helmet off, and nudges Rex away from his fascinated staring. It takes a couple of nudges and being steered by the arm he didn’t get burned on. _Space._ Space and _stars_ and _big fucking ships_ and he wishes his siblings were here with him seeing this. How will he explain this?

Rex blinks, and the General is there, looking human-ish, tall and blond, otherworldly in a way Rex can’t put a finger on. He has next to no armor on, and there’s a metallic tube at his hip, not a blaster. Rex really, really wishes his sibs were here with him seeing this, because you can’t make that shit up and they will never believe him. The man is a Jedi.

The man also doesn’t beat around the bush. “Who are you?”

“Rex Tjin,” he replies. That gets an eyebrow raise.

“And how did you get here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” and the General grimaces in a way that says so much for the translation.

“That almost sounded like Mando’a…,” the man shakes his head. He continues, having apparently decided than whatever communications problems  there are, he’ll still talk to Rex like they can understand each other: “See, I’d like to talk to you, because I’m not too keen on having Separatist spies running around, and if you’re a regular civilian, then our duty is to get you back where you came from. You also feel weird and weird things concern me.”

The two troopers do a double take between Rex and the General.

“Weird, sir?” Kix asks.

“Are you a Force-user?” the Jedi asks Rex, and Rex, who has had one hell of a day, who is still not quite sure all of this is really real, feels his jaw drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwhahahaha.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s still fucking cold. In good news, he now has boots and a jacket to wear over the body glove, and the guards assigned to him stay outside of the room on one of the big fucking Republic starships. He’s cautiously optimist about that, that it’s a bedroom and not straight up a cell he was led to. Non-negligible bonus: flying in a shuttle or whatever the smaller deployment ships are called is nothing like flying in a plane. Nothing trembles, buzzes, or moves in space the way things do in atmospheric flight.

Rex laces his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling, lying flat on his back on the room’s sole bunk, a hard mattress thing fused to its support frame. He can feel that his hair has grown back enough from shaving it before taking the plane to Vietnam to be visible blond fuzz now, and so has his stubble, rasping against the material of his sleeve when he moves. Shaving products were not part of the amenities of the attached cramped bathroom. How did they even shave, with lasers? Might explain the sharp hairstyle on Kix-the-Medic.

With every minute that passes, it feels less and less like he wandered off into someone’s dream or a department’s trap and more and more like, yes, this is another reality. Alternate dimensions are physics theories and thoughts exercises he had never paid that much attention to outside of science-fiction books and movies. Apparently, they’re real.

This is real.

He’s in a reality that looks like Star Wars and a Jedi asked him if he was a Force-user. He’d laugh if he could be sure he’d be able to stop.

“Fuck,” he says to the metal ceiling. “Fuck.”

There and now, again there’s nothing to do but wait. He catches some sleep, something that feels like an half-hour nap. As far as he can tell, five hours passed since he was aware of the corridor for the first time.

They don’t knock on doors here. They beep, and the door opens whether the one behind the door wants it or not.

Rex startles at the first beep. He’s sitting up the moment the trooper with extensively blue-streaked armor walks in, with helmet under his arm and twin blasters at his sides.

The clone is a blond like him, with the same startling contrast between brown skin and pale hair.

“I am Captain Rex, 501st. General Skywalker requests your presence.” Captain Rex doesn’t waste time on more pleasantries.

Rex stands up, follows the captain out and through corridors that still look like movie sets, the guard previously at the door a couple steps behind him. Hadn’t one of the clones from the TV series been named Rex? Yeah, the main ones had been Captain Rex and Commander Cody, at which point Rex had called Kai to wonder if someone had done it on purpose as a sort of call back to their family, what with Jango-Django, Cody-Khodi and Rex, or if the characters had been called after someone’s dogs.

Meeting the real people, that thought still sits like lead in him. They are people, they’re real, and Rex knows how that story ends, if events follow the same script as the end of the series he read about online and Episode III: rocks fall, everyone dies, the surviving clones lose their will and are controlled remotely, the rest of the galaxy gets subjugated by a tyrant who imposes an empire. The Republic they are in is not all daisies and sunshine either, rotting from the inside from corruption and political maneuvering years in the making, the war created from both sides thanks to that corruption. He could warn… someone, though the language barrier is going to be fun to get through.

Then he pings on what Captain Rex said: _General Skywalker_.

Between two corridors intersections, he wonders idly if that’s how finally, really, losing your mind feels like. He’s going to meet pre-Darth Vader. Rex shakes his head to clear that thought because he just can’t dwell on it, disguising it as a look from side to side, checking out the few people and open doors they pass. He needs to find a way home, and he can only hope most of the poor bastards in this reality are okay in the end. 

That he won’t find a way home doesn’t even cross his mind. He has a family, a brother returned from the dead, and a fiancé to go back to. 

“Major Kix said you understand Basic.”

Rex nods in answer. There’s a rank to go with the name of the medic, that’s better.

“Nice bit of shooting out there,” Captain Rex says, “you military?”

It might be a fairly innocent sounding question wrapped with a compliment, but they’re in the middle of a war—answering that question is a trap. Not answering it is a trap too. Rex shrugs, keeps looking ahead. He doubts it’ll ease Captain Rex’s suspicions, whatever they are, but that’s the best he can do at the moment.

Captain Rex announces their arrival on the bridge. There’s another human-looking man already there next to the General Rex met in the hangar earlier. Rex doesn’t have the time to wonder about their security protocols or lack thereof, showing someone who’s for all intent and purposes a prisoner somewhere fleet movements seem to be planned, because the new man turns around. He has one arm crossed across his chest and the other raised up so that his hand is at his chin, rubbing his beard, and Rex has to take a second to breath. Strange otherworldliness aside, the same otherworldly feeling General _Skywalker_ was giving off, the man could be Euan’s twin, the way Rex met him for the first time, deep gold hair and sharp beard and clear eyes.

“Ah,” the new man says, and it’s not Euan, not at all, but it could be, the same way the clones could be Rex’s cousins.

“Generals Kenobi, Skywalker,” Captain Rex salutes, walks to the display table. Rex follows him a step behind, his guard staying at the door. There are other clones here, most of them in grey uniforms, most of them looking at green-tinged display boards. The glances shot his way are far and few between, just enough that Rex would be ready to bet he’s going to be the most interesting bit of news among the troops today if he had anyone to take a sucker bet.  

Skywalker waves at Rex. “Obi-Wan, meet our latest mystery. The station showed up empty as planned, then this guy shows up picking out droids. Kix grabbed him thinking a trooper had gone crazy, dragged him back behind the lines. He doesn’t speak Basic, but understands it and, well,” Skywalker makes a move toward Rex. That gesture seems to be enough to explain the situation to Kenobi— _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ and the man looks like Euan, Rex at some point will not be surprised by what this reality is throwing at him but this point has not yet been reached—who comes around the table, closer to him.

Rex nods at Kenobi. Might as well be polite.

Kenobi nods back. “I am Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. May I know your name?” He’s very, very much not Rex’s fiancé, but the voice is a little too close for comfort.

“Rex Tjin,” he replies and that gets him almost the same eyebrow raise as Skywalker’s earlier. Kenobi also adds in a glance at Captain Rex, who is frowning. “I know we have the same name, I was surprised too,” Rex adds, not that he expects anyone to understand it.

“I’m afraid I do not know your language,” Kenobi says with a face that makes it looks like it’s a failing on his part and he’s terribly sorry for it.

So Rex tries again with Maori, and overly formal Mandarin, and bits and pieces of another dozen languages. All of them are met by an apologetic shake of the head.

“It seems we’ll be stuck with speaking Basic to you for the moment,” Kenobi says in the end, and the expression on Skywalker’s face on the other side of the table is hard to put a word to. He looks like he was hoping for Kenobi to take care of the situation and never have to worry about it again, like he had better things to do and Rex is in the way.

Rex licks his lips. That is not going to make things easy—both Kenobi’s words and Skywalker’s reaction.

“I have, however, something of a theory,” Kenobi continues. “One that could also explain why you are so distinctive in the Force.”

“How do we know he’s not a Separatist spy, sir?” Captain Rex asks, interrupting him.

“Yeah, they have Force-Users too,” Skywalker adds to that, arms crossed and jutting chin.

“It’s a sad fact that the war interrupted the course of the more theoretical classes on the Force the Temple has to offer that you could have taken, my dear Padawan. There are Force-users, and people touched by the Force. The difference is subtle, but there.”

Rex, through this, keeps his attention on Kenobi. He’s the guy to convince here, the one who can decide what happens next, the most senior CO on deck, and probably the guy who can get him home. Rex’s not sure where that last thought come from. It’s not the hair-raising instinct urging him to follow his fiancé to be in the right place and almost too late when said fiancé got shot five times, but it’s related.

Kenobi turns his attention back to Rex, tugging one of his gloves off. “I have a few questions, and skin-to-skin contact might help, if that’s all right.”

Rex glances at the other people in the room, then nods in acceptance at Kenobi, extending his hand. 

Kenobi’s palm is dry and warm. Rex tries to convince himself that the faint tingling from the contact is in his head. “Do you know how you arrived on the station?”

Rex see the cold corridors, can almost feel the shaking he couldn’t stop from low temperatures and still-damp clothes. He shakes his head—hopefully that’s understood as a negative here too—says “No” as well even if the detail of what he says will be lost.

“Do you know where you where before arriving there?” Kenobi looks like he’s looking beyond Rex, and beyond his skin at the same time, a look that goes through their hands. Kenobi’s gaze is unsettling, like it’s leaving the ghost of a touch in its wake. Kenobi’s voice changes as well, Rex’s first impression of otherworldliness increasing in weight with it—and that thought makes no sense even to Rex.

_Mapun, the beach, the bed with Ella and Eric, Ziba with her back to the door_. “Yes.”

“Was it the station?”

_The boat, open skies, the sheer impossibility of seeing Eric waiting for them on the beach, watching Sadakan through Euan’s eyes_. “No.”

Kenobi removes his hand from Rex’s and Rex has to blink, feeling that movement and the loss of contact with more than his physical form. It’s not a nice feeling, something that’s too raw under his skin, and he clamps down on it before it can go further than that: it doesn’t feel like a good idea to reach out to Kenobi without hands.

“I’ve only read about events much like what seems to have brought you here. What do you know of the Force?”

Rex frowns, answers that with a shake of his head. What he knows belongs to movies, there’s no telling what will be real. There’s also no way he’s passing on a lecture on the Force by _Obi-Wan Kenobi_.

Kenobi seems to understand that, smiles. “To go with the simplest explanation, the Force is what is in and around all living things. While not every being can feel its presence or use it, it has a very real impact on the physical world. It gathers in some places, and creates what we call nexus. Reality as we know it can become… the best term would be _distorted_ , but it is more, hm, folded, all conceptions of reality existing in the same pinpoint in space and time.”

“What?” Skywalker says, expressing Rex’s immediate reaction pretty neatly. Is Kenobi saying that the Force can create singularities that go through different dimensions? It sounds enough like completely impossible science-fiction to belong to the present situation.

“Spatio-Temporal Physics,” Kenobi answers Skywalker, which doesn’t seem to mean much. “There’s a nexus of the Force forming in this station, and it was active enough to drag our friend Rex Tjin here from one reality to another.” He nods at Rex and Rex can only stare. Kenobi crosses his arms again, one hand going to his chin, staring back like Rex handed him something fascinating with a bow on top. “The Council needs to be informed. This station will need to be closely monitored for any other event.”

Skywalker scowls. “I don’t want to think about what Dooku could do with a nexus.”

“Surprisingly little, in the grand scheme of things. Their study has revealed no way to use them in a controlled fashion—it overwhelmingly tended more toward them using people.”

Rex wants to shake them. That’s not information he needs, that he wants. “How do I get home?” he asks, language barrier be damned, urgency conveyed in his body language as best as he knows how.

Captain Rex takes a step toward him, free hand on one of the blasters at his hip. Rex doesn’t glance back but he expects the guard who stayed in the back to be ready to stop him as well. Those guys don’t mess around. Skywalker has his arms uncrossed as well, ready to grab his lightsaber if needed.

Kenobi looks the picture of relaxation. He’s definitively the most dangerous person on the bridge, and the one calling the shots. “I guess your question is how to go back?” He asks.

Rex nods, and he takes no care to disguise his impatience. 

“Could I convince you to come with us to—“

Rex doesn’t let him finish, shakes his head. “No.” And then repeats it, for good measure. “I want to go home. Home,” he emphasizes, gesturing with his thumb above his shoulder. He doesn’t give a shit if it means _I fucked a goat_ here, that’s the closest he can figure out to tell them he wants to go fucking back, not get into a debate about the nature of the Force on another planet. There’s no telling how long he’s actually been gone. Internal clock says about six-ish hours by now, but it could have been seven, it could have been a day.

“Returning you to your point of origin is only a matter of going back to the nexus.”

Rex frowns. That’s too easy.

Kenobi shrugs with one shoulder. “That’s the only way we know. As far as I am aware, no being that returned through a nexus came back—the mathematics involved to understand the detail of it are quite beyond my understanding.”

That’s absolutely not reassuring. Did any of the poor bastards this shit happened to ever made it back?

“Anakin,” Kenobi says, turning toward Baby Vader who still looks ready to jump over the table to defend the other Jedi, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to accompany our guest back to the station, after I contact the Council.”

Skywalker inhales, crosses his arms across his chest. “As you wish, Master.”

“Sir,” Captain Rex says, straightening up. “I’d like to volunteer to search for the…nexus, as well. The 501st was on the ground, Torrent Company will have the advantage of being familiar with the terrain.”

“Will that have been enough time for you and them to rest?”

“Yes sir.”

Captain Rex is a suspicious bastard who is not hiding that he wants to keep a close eye on Rex. Rex’s opinion of the clones troopers is already pretty high, and it keeps climbing.

“I will call the Council and explain the situation right away. Captain, get as many men as you think necessary, and I will join you shortly.”

Captain Rex salutes, turns around and starts walking out. Rex waits for a beat, then he nods at Skywalker and Kenobi before following the Captain, guard on his heel. Skywalker does not return the nod.


	3. Chapter 3

Once they are out of the bridge, the Captain puts his helmet on. It takes only two corridors for him to stop, turn around, and face Rex. Rex is all too aware that he’s stuck between two armored and armed soldiers with no weapon.

“Let me be clear,” Captain Rex says, his voice distorted by the helmet, “This is any kind of trap, my General gets a _papercut_ , it’s on your head. Got me?”

Rex narrows his eyes. Attitude won’t get either of them anywhere, so his answer is a curt “Yes, sir,” straightening up to mimic the way he’s seen the troopers stand.

Captain Rex stays in his face a few more seconds. He doesn’t take a step back but his focus switch to the trooper behind Rex. “Get him to the hangar, load him on to Davijaan’s lartie, and don’t let anyone in until I get back.” On that, he turns away and leaves.

The trooper behind Rex, the one he still doesn’t have a name for, clears his throat. “Let’s go then. Turbos to the left.”    

Rex watches the Captain for a few more seconds, until he takes a turn and vanishes down another corridor. The guard nudges him. Rex walks.

The lartie turns out to be one of the shuttles ships that the troopers and Rex took from the station to the main ship. Rex climbs in and stands, waiting, his guard outside the open bay door. There isn’t much inside: enough space for about twenty people standing and two pilots, a couple crates bolted to the floor. The few lines of what appears to be writing—blocky shapes slapped in place where warnings and instructions go are apparently universal—Rex can’t read them.

Outside the lartie, it’s a hangar. Again, from what he can see and hear, he’s struck by the feeling of familiarity of soldiers joking around and working and cursing up a storm.

Captain Rex comes back with Kenobi after a good hour has passed, six troopers with decorated armors following them. They load up, and Kenobi knocks at the access hatch, “Takes us up, Davijaan.” The doors closes as the ship lifts from the hangar floor, almost silently.

The thin windows in the doors are almost too thin to see anything. Rex grabs a loop dangling from the overhead for stability and camps in front of one of them anyway. Stars and space, just in front of him—there’s no fucking way he’ll miss seeing any of that. The bits of conversations at his back,  he ignores. 

All too soon space is hidden by the same metallic hues Rex saw first in coming here, the station taking them in.

Two troopers escort Rex down the lartie, stay at his sides even after. The hangar seems to be the same one he met Skywalker in earlier. There are several larties and squads still there, with the weary feeling of after-action and having to clean up before showers are available that Rex remembers a little too well from the sandbox.

Rex looks at the ship he just left, and at space outside the hangar, takes in as much as he can. He’s going home. Space and ships will be back to be pure science-fiction soon enough—he hopes he’ll keep the breathtaking awe of seeing that with his own eyes.

Captain Rex and Kenobi take point, followed by Rex and his escort, then the remaining four troopers. They trek back to the factory-looking space. The corridors look just as empty, but now Rex also notices scorch marks and dismantled droids left in place.

They stop at the entrance of the factory space. It looks different, silent and empty.

Kenobi turns to him. “Which way?”

Rex looks closely, finds the piece of equipment behind which the makeshift infirmary was set up. The group follows him as he retraces his steps. From there, there is more than one access ramp up to the balconies levels on each side of the floor in sight. He goes with his guts for the second closest one—then he confirms it when he sees the faint blood traces, dark against the metal hue, that his feet left on the way down. He snorts. Fucked up Tom Thumb in space, here they went.

 “How do you know which way you’re going?” The trooper at his right asks, and Rex points at the traces.

“Yikes,” Right One says. 

“That sure makes it easier to track,” the one on the left says.

“That’s enough chatting,” Captain Rex calls. The captain is standing at Kenobi’s left. Kenobi is only standing there, face turned toward the balconies, but there’s a weird shiver going down Rex’s spine. Jedi, he reminds himself, the weird shit is only Jedi shit. _Only_ , hah.

They climb up, passing more silent corridors and broken droid remains. Thank fuck there are no trooper remains. Rex didn’t see where the unmoving bodies at the makeshift infirmary went while they moved to the hangar. At least… at least they didn’t stay where they fell.

There are dozen of corridors, and now Rex is worried he won’t know which one was the first one he took. Running from droids didn’t leave him much time to notice details, not that there are a lot of details to distinguish one metal panel from another, one glowing white light from another. Give him desert any day over space horror aesthetics—were Wesley and Brian here, the haunted space station jokes would have already reached saturation.

“This way,” Kenobi directs them, striding suddenly to turn and vanish from view. Everyone moves to keep up. Rex doesn’t see any difference in the corridor the Jedi choose over the ones they just passed, and the faint blood traces, the only evidence they had of his passage, had stopped.

Far, far away from the beginning of the corridor Kenobi is standing in, waiting for them, there’s a glowly light that buzzes and clicks on and buzzes and clicks off.

“Sir,” Captain Rex says, walking until he stands next to the Jedi.

“It’s getting fairly strong this way. You might feel something as well, Captain. All of you should.”

“Feel what, sir?”

“Unless you see battle droids, assume nothing you see is real from now on,” Kenobi replies, pitching his voice to carry to the whole group. He doesn’t let them any time to take that in, and just starts walking. 

“Well, shit,” Right One says.

“Right there with you,” Rex says. Possible Force hallucinations, all that the strangest fucking day of his life so far needed. Thinking of haunted space station jokes seems a little too on the nose now.

The troopers banter a bit, references that again go right over Rex’s head, in a shoot the shit way to cut weird tension he remembers all too well. Rex wouldn’t mind shooting the shit with them, but he hasn’t caught on to their hand gestures to participate even in the most limited way.

Thankfully, Rex doesn’t see anything weird as they go deeper and deeper; no, he doesn’t see anything weirder than what he’s already seeing, Jedi and clone troopers and space station. On the contrary, each step echoes in a more and more familiar way. After something he estimates to be a good twenty minutes of going down that corridor, he could swear he’s hearing the sea in the distance. 

Another ten minutes, and Kenobi looks over his shoulder at him, slowing down. The troopers have stopped chitchatting some time ago. “Are you hearing it?” 

Rex looks back. He has no idea what Kenobi is hearing, maybe the Jedi is straight up hearing the Force itself. But by now Rex is certain he’s hearing waves breaking ashore, the faintest cry of birds, the deeper noise of water lapping at boats. It sounds like Mapun at earlier that night—or has it turned to day by now—when he was drinking on the beach with all his family, Ziba, and Andy. 

“Rex Tjin?”

Rex jerks, startled out of his thoughts, out of the noises that sound of home and _right_ by Kenobi speaking his name, his pronunciation bleeding at the edge with the strangeness of the not English and not Mandarin and not Maori. Rex nods. Whatever he’s hearing, it must be the nexus. They’re close.

“Captain, it might be best if Rex Tjin and I continued alone. I think we’re there.”

“Sir,” the captain starts to protest, and Kenobi stops him.

“It’s becoming far stronger than I was expecting. I would feel better if you and your men stopped there and ensured that this position remains clear.”

Rex doesn’t wait for them to figure themselves out. He starts walking again. Kenobi is walking by his side at some point, but soon the sounds of footsteps are overpowered by the sound of the waves.

“May the Force be with you, Rex,” is the last thing he hears clearly.

Rex keeps walking.

 

—

Rex wakes up with a start, as if breaking out from the surf again, hands shaking him, steadying him. Ella, Eric, an almost to-small bed, warm air, an unfamiliar ceiling—this is Mapun. _This is Mapun_.

“Where the hell did you go?” Ella drags herself closer, and Rex blinks at the way her hands are shaking on his shoulders, on his cheeks.

“What?”

“You weren’t here,” Eric tells him, his arms around his chest. Eric is holding Rex up like his brother dragged him out of the water, chest to back and almost too tight. Rex can feel his heartbeat against his spine, can feel where a leg should be and isn’t. 

“What?” Rex repeats.

“In your dream, in your _head_ ,” Ella spits, her finger hitting his forehead, hard. Rex turns his head back to face her, and he stares, because his sister looks scared. Ella doesn’t do scared. Ella gets angry and takes no prisoners until the situation is resolved.

Ziba walks back into the room, carrying a bottle of water. Rex hasn’t known her long, but he can see she looks spooked. She looks _spooked by him_. He has no idea what happened—another PTSD blackout would not have scared them like this, even so close to another one. He tries to catch their eyes, one after the other, but there are no explanations to be found there.

Rex moves his arms and hisses in pain. At the edge of his sleeve, there’s a burn that wasn’t there when he went back to sleep. He stares at it. He can hear the twins and Ziba trying to catch his attention, but he’s locked on to the discolored, painful patch of skin, a not-shot not-burn from a blaster that never existed outside a screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. Thanks for coming along on this ride!


End file.
